Francis

One in five seminaries and theological institutions in North America surveyed offer courses on faith and the environment and the number appears to be growing, a study by a Jerusalem-based interfaith environmental group found.

While headlines and social media outlets broadcast the beheadings, burnings, kidnappings and other barbarous acts performed by the Islamic State, the rise of the group in Iraq and Syria holds both a challenge and opportunity for relations among Muslims, Jews and Christians.

Clerics who work in the Vatican's diplomatic corps are not called to be "senior officials of a state" or "a self-preserving superior caste, welcome in worldly living rooms," Pope Francis said.

Rather, they must be "authentic pastors," with the "courage to plow" with their own hands the fields of mission to which they are assigned, he told future Vatican diplomats during an audience at the Vatican on Thursday.

Pope Francis isn't going to be visiting the United States until September, but that hasn't kept the pope from going all around the nation, if only as a simple piece of paper for the time being.

Chicago-based Catholic Extension is helping to build excitement and support for Pope Francis' upcoming trip to the United States by creating Flat Francis.

The project takes some inspiration from "The Flat Stanley Project," which centers on a paper cutout of Flat Stanley, a cartoon drawing based on books of the same name, being photographed with people in numerous locations.

The deep hurts that spouses inflict on each other cause great suffering to their children and, in some cases, lead to a separation that is "morally necessary" to protect spouses and children from more serious forms of violence, Pope Francis said during his general audience Wednesday in St. Peter's Square.

Continuing a series of talks about the family, the pope reflected on the hurts family members cause each other, calling this type of behavior "the ugliest thing."